1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates generally to hanging wall decorations and more specifically to tapestries with high fidelity reproductions of original artwork and that remain flat and stable over a range of temperatures and humidity.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Most 19th-century tapestries reproduced paintings or previously woven designs. The Industrial Revolution introduced new tools, materials, dyes, and the new middle-class market and its demands. Traditionally, tapestry designs are built up in the course of weaving the decorative fabric. The term tapestry has been applied to any heavy material used to cover furniture, walls, or floors or even to decorate garments. Its narrower, more precise meaning limits its use to heavy, hand-woven textiles usually used for wall hangings or upholstery.
In popular usage, almost any heavy material, hand-woven, machine woven, or even embroidered, used to cover furniture, walls, or floors or for the decoration of clothing, has been called tapestry. Since the 18th and 19th centuries, however, the technical definition of tapestry narrowed to include only heavy, reversible, patterned or figured hand-woven textiles, usually in the form of hangings or upholstery fabric. Tapestry traditionally has been a luxury art afforded only by the wealthy. Even in the 20th century, large-scale hand-woven tapestries were too expensive for those with moderate incomes.
The toile peinte (French: "painted linen"), uses large sheets of heavy, flexible fabric on which a tapestry cartoon has been painted. The cartoon is a full-sized preliminary study from which the finished tapestry is made. Unlike cartoons drawn on paper, toiles peintes were intended to be hung as though they were finished tapestries. Most toiles peintes date from the 16th century in France. The finest collection of old toiles peintes belongs to the Cathedral of Reims. A cartoon originally was and still is a drawing, a full-size pattern for execution in painting, tapestry, mosaic, or other form. The cartoon was the final stage in the series of drawn preparations for painting in traditional Renaissance studio practice. In the early 1840's, the cartoon suddenly acquired a new meaning, that of pictorial parody.
Wool is most widely used material for making the warp, or the parallel series of threads in tapestries that run lengthwise in the fabric. The width-running threads, weft, are also most commonly of wool. Wool is used in the weaving of tapestries because of its availability, workability, durability, and the fact that it can be easily dyed to obtain a wide range of colors. Wool has often been used in combination with linen, silk, or cotton threads for the weft. These materials make possible greater variety and contrast of color and texture and are better suited than wool to detail weaving or to creating delicate effects. In European tapestry, light-colored silks were used to create pictorial effects of tonal gradation and spatial recession. The sheen of silk thread was often used for highlights or to give a luminous effect when contrasted to the dull and darkly colored heavier woolen threads. In 18th-century European tapestries, silk was increasingly used, especially at the Beauvais factory in France, to achieve subtle tonal effects. Most of the Chinese and Japanese tapestries have both warp and weft threads of silk. Pure silk tapestries were also made in the Middle Ages by the Byzantines and in parts of the Middle East. Wholly linen tapestries were made in ancient Egypt, while Copts, or Egyptian Christians, and medieval Europeans sometimes used linen for the warp. Cotton and wool were employed for pre-Columbian Peruvian tapestries as well as for some of the tapestries made in the Islamic world during the Middle Ages. Since the 14th century, European weavers have used gold and silver weft threads along with wool and silk to obtain a sumptuous effect. These threads were made of plain or gilded silver threads wound in a spiral on a silk thread.
Fabrics have been used in room furnishings to help with heating the room by adding insulation. In the primitively heated rooms of the Middle Ages, textiles were used to keep out cold and drafts. In 12th- and 13th-century churches, painted textile drapery can still be discerned beneath the picture friezes. In rather cold churches, just as in poorly heated homes, loosely hung textile wall coverings were of the greatest importance. They were hung loosely because of the practice of taking them down and moving them, together with the relatively few items of furniture, according to need. It was not until the end of the 17th century and during the 18th century that tapestries and other forms of textile wall hanging became fixtures and were fastened to the walls with frames. Wall pictures made of paper and, subsequently, patterned wallpaper became a cheaper substitute for textile wall hangings during the 19th century. Screens or room dividers were often covered with textiles, partly to afford protection against direct radiant heat and partly to create cozy corners in large rooms. Framed screens were often covered with pieces of tapestry, with other woven materials, or with gilt leather.